Welcome to AfricanCultureDirect - A Documentation of African Culture and Issues by Africans - Presented to the Global Platform...Africa as told by Africa!

Monday, 25 March 2013

Kenya: A Dictator’s Last Laugh

By
NGUGI WA THIONG’O

Published: March 14, 2013

I MUST have been about 10 in colonial Kenya
when I saw men, women and children in a convoy of lorries being
forcibly removed from their land and relocated to some dry plains they
called the land of black rocks. They sang a sorrowful melody, but one
that described their love and solidarity in hardship: even when they
picked a morsel from the ground, they split it among themselves. It was
an image that captured vividly the ideals of mutual care and collective
hope in the Kenyan anticolonial resistance. In my first trip to Europe,
in 1965, virtually the entire village saw me off at the airport. They
said: You must return home.But much of my career has been spent in exile. My novel “Devil on the
Cross” was scrawled in my mother tongue, Gikuyu, on toilet paper from a
maximum-security prison in 1978. That was the last novel I wrote there.

Last week’s election in Kenya compels me to point out something little
noticed in the West. The real winner was a man who wasn’t on the ballot:
Daniel arap Moi,
the country’s leader from 1978 to 2002, who terrorized it for 24 years
and destroyed all credible institutions, including political parties.The election at first seemed to augur well for democracy. Turnout was an
enthusiastic 86 percent and, despite some glitches, election observers
gave the vote a clean bill of health. The president-elect, Uhuru
Kenyatta, and his running mate, William Ruto, won with just over 50
percent of the popular vote. Their main opponent, Raila Odinga, has
refused to concede — but took his dispute to the courts rather than to the streets, where months of deadly violence erupted after the last election, in 2007.Although the process seems to have gone relatively well, it was Mr. Moi
who spawned the winners. The sycophancy and corruption of his era are
still ingrained in the political culture and are embodied by the rise of
his allies in this election.

Mr. Moi was the vice president and hand-chosen successor of Jomo
Kenyatta, Kenya’s founding father. Kenyatta introduced de facto
one-party rule; Mr. Moi made it a full-fledged dictatorship.When multiparty politics were introduced in 1992 — a phenomenon Mr. Moi
hadn’t encountered — he turned to a young upstart, William Ruto, to
cling to power. Mr. Ruto distinguished himself as a lieutenant for Youth
for Kanu ’92, which conducted a campaign of violence and intimidation
in the Rift Valley Province, home to Mr. Moi. Thousands of residents
were forced to flee. Some returned, only to have to flee again around
the next election, in 1997. The Rift Valley was also the epicenter of
the 2007 violence, which displaced hundreds of thousands of people. In
almost all the election cycles, the incitement to violence has come from
members of the political class — not the Kenyans trying to simply lead
their lives.Before term limits forced Mr. Moi from office in 2002, he tried to
position Uhuru Kenyatta, a son of Jomo, as his successor. Instead,
voters chose an opposition leader, Mwai Kibaki. His decade-long tenure
was tainted by allegations of police abuses, though he also tried to
restore institutions wrecked by Mr. Moi. (The two had been allies, but
had a falling out.)

Uhuru Kenyatta’s victory is due in part to his running mate, Mr. Ruto —
an odd alliance given that their factions were on opposing sides in the
2007 violence. A consummate chameleon, Mr. Ruto joined forces, in
succession, with Mr. Moi, Mr. Odinga and Mr. Kibaki. He was this
election’s kingmaker, happy to be wooed by both leading candidates.Mr. Kenyatta and Mr. Ruto share more than political expedience: they
both face charges of crimes against humanity before the International
Criminal Court for their alleged roles in the 2007 clashes. They have
pleaded innocence, but they also deftly exploited the charges during the
campaign, presenting themselves as victims of imperialist interference.
Mr. Ruto faces another legal battle over allegations that he stole land
from someone who fled the violence.Against the backdrop of political intrigue, Kenya struggles against
exploitative practices by Western corporations. A self-isolated middle
class cruises in luxury above a sea of poverty. Nairobi’s skyscrapers
and opulent hotels dazzle the foreign observer’s eye, while blinding it
to the shacks, broken roads and unfinished World Bank projects.

Will Mr. Kenyatta and Mr. Ruto, two of Kenya’s wealthiest men, revive
the economy, reduce poverty and corruption, resettle displaced persons
and prioritize the interests of ordinary Kenyans? I am skeptical.Kenya has never enjoyed a truly democratic culture. A new Constitution
adopted in 2010 tries to decentralize powers and set up checks and
balances. It offers a chance to roll back the entrenchment of the Moi
legacy. Only then, finally, might the nation silence a motto Mr. Moi
once embraced, without a trace of irony: “L’état, c’est Moi.”